Days of Drawings
This project originally started off in 2019 as a way to include my Beta-Readers into the entire process of what I do to create the books that I write. It erupted into a full scale commitment to myself that I would make a Sketch-a-Day and post it here for my community. I’ve been using prompts from the app, Sketch-a-Day to start the word and then create the drawings. Once a month, I’ll give one of my pieces away in a Drawing for Drawings. Hahaha! I ended this project in 2021 due to the increase in demand for my work.
If you are interested in having your name illustrated by Janine, please contact Tasha Wilmore to set up a 30min consultation before work on your project begins.
303-747-3760
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Monthly Drawings for My Artwork
As a way to say, “Thank You” for all the support, kindnesses and fun that I have had with my online students, clients, customers, I have created this monthly drawing where I will send out an original artwork that I am building for one of my books, projects or cartoons that I put into my programs. This is a drawing for a drawing (HaHaHa!)
It suddenly dawned on me that I have rarely shared the “Art” part of the work I do to build what I build. The only folks who ever saw my hand drawn work were my children or the graphic artists I worked with that digitize all my ideas into a more professional looking form. Here is my way of bringing you into the wacky world that is my creative process for the Fun I have in Life.
I will pull a “Lucky Winner” on the 24th of each month through 2021.
Day #1 "Make Room"
This is the prompt that launched the “Sketch-a-Day” enterprise for me. As I looked at the prompts on my phone it said, “ROOM.” I was so overwhelmed with the plethora of ideas of what I could do, I settled into just drawing the letters/word and them making it a funny joke as a “play on words” or a pun if you will.
People loved it so I decided to keep with that theme.
Day #2 "Taking Shape"
The prompt was, “Shape.” Now anyone who knows me realizes that I am a total math geek and thrive when I’m discussing pi, phi and fibonacci sequences. Again, I was so overwhelmed with the multitude of geometry shapes and equations I could play with for this prompt. I decided on a simple pun.
People loved it (over 100 likes) so I kept going.
Day #3 "Recovery"
By this time I knew that I was onto something with the word play and pictures theme, so when JAB came up, I knew there were at least three very different themes. Medical (needles and vaccines), Sport (boxing) or Verbal Attack. I chose boxing because I really didn’t want to do anything that was pointy or pokey in my art. Here is the result. I posted this and within 20 minutes I had comments from people asking me if I had been drawing for decades. Wow! They thought it was good. I decided to join the art community officially at this point and put “artist” under my name on facebook, linkedin and created a Ko-fi account for commissions.
Day #4 "Crystalline Cold"
Now that I was “officially” an artist and a member of the community, when I posted this work from the prompt, “Frost.” I got so much response from the image that I almost cried when a young artist asked me if I would do a drawing of her name for her birthday. She donated money into my Ko-fi account and I was so pleased to see that I was making some people’s world more colorful with the art.
That’s the entire purpose of this project, to bring a bit of color into people’s world through the use of illustration.
Day #5 "New Markers"
Today I received a gift of 40 water based markers so I started to play with all the color gradients I could muster with the entire set. I had a terrific time for over two hours as I blended, worked and decided on how to make the various letters and backgrounds standout. The line drawings of the different modes of transportation are highlights to some of my favorite books, Jules Verne is represented by the hot air balloon. Henry Ford by the car. The Wright Brothers by the bicycle and the song of my children’s youth, “Skater Boy.”
Day #6 "Theater & Cinema Together"
Theater and Cinema have come a long way together and I wanted to represent both since we now have movies being made out of plays and plays that are based on movies (ahem, sorry, “films.”) The Cinema is always a place of wonder and imagination, just like the stage.
I wanted to see how well the new markers would work in this realm. Still learning how to get them to blend a bit better.
Day #7 "POW-ch"
I didn’t like the look the markers were giving me so I went back to working on the sketches with colored pencils. This was by far the best way for me to draw for now. I enjoy the control and intensity that I get with the pencils that I’m unable to get with the markers I was given.
Day #8 "Technology"
The original sketch I had planned for today’s challenge was on blue paper with white lines using a chalk marker, but I ran out of time before the deadline. I only had an hour before my sketch was due so I quickly put this sketch up so I wouldn’t lose my daily posting streak.
Day #9 "Steak"
Being a Not-Meat eater for decades, this was an interesting prompt. I decided to go for a goofy humorful rendering and instead of showing me hugging a cow or something like that, I decided to go for the delight that my Mid-Western family has for their steak-and-potatoes. Fun stuff.
Day #10 "Send"
People know me as a big Card Sender. I love cards. Sending as well as receiving. So this picture was prompted by that. I have to admit I was tempted to draw a smartphone and have a goofy text message on this prompt, but alas, time was the issue. My work had me running late and I only had 2 hours to work before I had to send in my sketch.
Day #11 "Camping"
I’ve spent so many years as a Girl Scout Leader and a Boy Scout Chaplain that camping is second nature to me. My favorite camping experience was spending the weekend at a tipi site along the Flatirons. I loved being able to see the stars while falling asleep.
Wonderful memories while I drew to this prompt.
Day #12 "Little"
For me my ideas seams so tiny and little, then as I think about them as they take shape in my life, my ideas expand into some of the best life experiences I could ever have. That was the point of this sketch. What starts off as an itty-bitty idea grows into a little change in my life that makes all the difference!
Day #13 "Landing"
Because of my love of flight, landing was easy. I enjoy seeing Earth from up high in the clouds. The earth always is so beautiful to me no matter if I’m looking at lush farmland, grasslands of the mid-west or the arid deserts of the Southwest. I love it all. Being in an airplane is a place of joy for me.
Day #14 "Day"
When I sat down to work out this sketch, I had a plan. Unfortunately I made the letters way too big to work out the rest of the sketch. I liked the letters. I didn’t want to erase them, so I played with my shading and white chalk paint markers to highlight the letters in novel ways.
Day #15 "Try"
With the prompt of “Try” I couldn’t resist bringing in a little yoda as the No Try Guy! Hope you enjoy the humor.
Day #16 "Road"
I love the cross-roads model.
I seem to spend most of my time helping people make decisions out of the stalemate they have as they stand at their personal cross-roads.
Day #17 "Digger"
I have always enjoyed watching heavy machinery at work. The big ditch diggers are no exception!
Day #18 "Angel"
Angel was a fun prompt to just draw with lots of purple and green. Who doesn’t love drawing wings!
Day #19 "Moon"
I always felt sorry for the Man-on-the-Moon as a kid because he didn’t have a buddy to play with. I remember my parents telling me that he had Earth to play with, but somehow that never really settled with me. So when today’s “prompt” was “Moon.” I drew him a buddy.
It made me smile.
Day #20 "Route"
There are always so many signs in our lives telling us direction and ways to travel. It can really get confusing. I thought about those old signs in England and Europe where they have just a stick in the ground that you could turn and really mess up where people are headed and detour them miles from where they really wish to be.
I’ve always enjoyed drawing to the edges of the page so here was a bit of fun as I planned my “Route.”
Day #21 "Country"
“Country” is such a huge word. I was struggling to come up with any one particular look for it. When my head spins like that I decide to just draw out the word first and see what happens as the letters hit the page. I then got out my brush pens and started doodling with shadow and ink. Then came in the colors. It was a quick fun sketch of flow. I realized I had captured the lazy, gentle ways of creeks and streams in the country I grew up in. Nice.
Day #22 "Father"
With today’s prompt I was reminded of my dad who was a military man, a cowboy, dreamer and builder. He was a Navy SeaBee so my life was built around me as I was growing up. I wanted to make all kinds of tools to make up this word, but I started very late in the day with this drawing and was fighting sleep to get it done. My dad passed away in 2019. Love you, Dad!
Day #23 "Magic"
Life is full of unexpected surprises, so I allowed myself to enjoy the color, craziness and joy of the magician, wizard and bubbling up of laughter that comes from being throughly entertained by Life’s ability to bring about true magic in your journey.
Day #24 "Cone"
There are so many fun ways this prompt could have gone. Highway cones, coneheads, geometry, mathematics, but instead I took the simple pleasure of a hot day with a waffle cone. I guess it was on my mind because the weather had taken a bad turn this week and the day I drew this we were at -8 degrees fahrenheit.
Day #25 "Help"
When I first thought about this prompt I was going to make a “help” button that a hand was mashing, but as my pen hit the page, I noticed a megaphone was manifesting and then I kept saying to myself, “How can we make this funny?” My pen continued to move and I kept focusing on, “How can I make this funny?” This is the picture that happened.
Day #26 "Fire"
I’ve been a girl scout my whole life. When you mention fire, I immediately am picturing myself at a campsite building fires for the girls to make their s’mores. As they got older, I was in charge of allowing them to build fires and just monitoring the site for safety. We had a glorious time as I got to teach them 3 ways to make fire without matches and other fun games.
Day #27 "Feet"
Since I love cartoons, I make it a habit to not draw things as they are, but for their funny components. For me Feet are funny things with big toes, tiny toes and a whole range of toes in between. This was a giggly sort of drawing for me to complete.
Day #28 "Furniture"
I ran out of time on this sketch. I was late getting my work done for the day and I had exactly 10min to pull something together or I would lose my “posting streak” on the app I use. I missed the deadline and still ended up having to start over. Ah, such is life! I ended up slowing down and made the decision to set an alarm to remind me to stop working so I could make time for my art.
Day #29 "New"
This prompt saw me spend 3x longer on the shading, the colors and contouring. because of the fiasco of the previous day’s “furniture” prompt, I made the decision to really take the time I wanted to have fun working with the pencils and feeling the scratch of the soft cores on the thick drawing paper. It was a good way to finish off my evening.
Day #30 "Nail"
Had so much fun working on the colors and shading needed to make the nail look 3 dimensional. I have a lot to learn, but I am throughly enjoying the fun and meditative state I go into when creating art. May you have as much fun with it as I do.
As Neil Gaiman says,
“When you don’t know what else to do, go make art!”